Mr. Hartly, a learned churchman, has remarked as follows:  “There are many prophecies which declare the fall of the ecclesiastical powers of the Christian world, and though each church seems to flatter itself with the hope of being exempted, yet it is very plain that the prophetical characters belong to all.  They all have left the true, pure, simple religion, and teach for doctrines the commandments of men.”

Says Mr. Simpson, in Plea for Religion:  “We Protestants, too, read the declaration of the third angel against the worshipers of the beast and his image, and make ourselves easy under the awful denunciation by applying it exclusively to the church of Rome; never dreaming that they are equally applicable not only to the English, but to every church establishment in Christendom, which retains any of the marks of the beast.  For though the Pope and the church of Rome is at the head of the grand twelve hundred and sixty years’ delusion, yet all other churches, of whatever denomination, whether established or tolerated, which partake of the same spirit, or have instituted doctrines and ceremonies inimical to the pure and unadulterated gospel of Christ, shall sooner or later share in the fate of that immense fabric of human ordinances.”

Says Mr. Hopkins:  “There is no reason to consider the antichristian spirit and practices confined to that which is now called the church of Rome.  The Protestant churches have much of Antichrist in them, and are far from being wholly reformed from the corruptions and wickedness, in doctrine and practice, in it.  Some churches may be more pure and may have proceeded farther in a reformation than others; but where can the church be found which is thoroughly purged from her abominations?  None are wholly clear from an antichristian spirit and the fruits of it....  And as the church of Rome will have a large share in the cup of indignation and wrath which will be poured out, so all the Christian world will have a distinguished portion of it:  as the inhabitants of it are much more guilty than others.  There is great reason to conclude that the world, particularly that part of it called Christian and Protestant, will yet make greater and more rapid advances in all kinds of moral corruption and open wickedness, till it will come to that state in which it will be fully ripe and prepared to be cut down by the sickle of divine justice and wrath.”

Mr. O. Scott (Wesleyan Methodist) says:  “The church is as deeply infected with a desire for worldly gain as the world.  Most of the denominations of the present day might be called churches of the world, with more propriety than churches of Christ.  The churches have so far gone from primitive Christianity that they need a fresh regeneration—­a new kind of religion.”